I am changing the WEB site design, primarily because:
1) people complain about the frames on the existing site (don’t have a problem with them myself).
2) I want to arrange the ports by manufacturer, rather than architecture. For example, all Atmel ports will be listed under Atmel, rather than under ARM7, AVR and AVR32.
Most of the content will be unchanged, but the menu system will/could be different. Again, I actually like the tree view because its like having a site map permanently visible. If/when the tree view gets replaced I will ensure there is a site map too.
1 looks very different, but does it give the right impression as being a serious engineering site?
2 is similar to the existing sight, but cleaner.
3 is just like the existing site, but will less in the menu frame.
I would appreciate your thoughts. FreeRTOS is gaining popularity all the time and has to adapt - it is important that it looks a bit geeking, while also giving a serious image.
If you don’t want to write something here then you can email comments to r (dot) barry _at_ freertos.org.
I should also say I’m not going to be offended if you say bad things about the existing site, honest feedback allows improvement and I’m already aware of its shortcomings.
Hi,
just as an onlooker, I’d like to say that the design that stretches content from window border to border is very '90ish nowadays
To express my thoughts exactly :
1) resembles some old style TTY screens (due to the green stripes, relatively narrow centre section and black background) - people who created them are starting to go away these days… or change the collar color to management and don’t want to be reminded of the old days this design is very 90’sh. Looks like one of the warez sites to me (common? usage of black background).
3) as you said, is just a copy of the old design, less frames; this one is acceptable (not going into dark ages like 1) ) if you apply some left hand/right hand margins on it - like on the 2)
but as the 2) is there, I’d say go for it - it is subtly modernized compared to the original, and has some margins, which the 3) doesn’t have.
I like #3. I don’t understand what peoples complains about frames are, unless they’re browsing on a G1 or iPhone. And the few people that do aren’t worth worrying about (I have a G1, so I fall into that category )
congratulations, you managed to make a nice and modern looking site, without loosing any of the good things that you had in the old one.
Specialy the left side hierachy menu. With a bonus: I am able to resize the left side for long entries or if I am on my notebook with (only!) 1024 width!!!
The aesthetics of the new site are fine. However, there is one functional change that is quite annoying. With the old site I could browse as normal with the tree frame on the left and then, I could selectively open a page in a new tab without the frames. With the new site when I try to do this it insists on reloading all the frames.
The old way was the best of both worlds. I had the tree to make navigating easy in the beginning. Then when I found what I was looking for I could open it in a new tab without the frames. Opening a page I want to study without the frames made the site considerably better. When I am done navigating and want to begin studying, the header and navigation frames take away screen space and add no function. With them there I have to do a lot more scrolling up and down as much less content fits on the screen at any time.
I understand there might be a concern about someone linking directly to a sub-page and not having the frames. Adding a small link at the top or bottom of each page to either reload the page with frames enabled or to go to the main homepage would suffice.
Overall the new site looks nice but, please re-enable the lost functionality. Thank you.